Patterned after "Summer shorts" and "More summer shorts," this is yet another collection of, as I once put it, "several items too short for individual Venting." It exists mostly because these bits run around 5k, and I didn't feel like anything going through my head this week was worthy of 5k.

When my daughter told me about six weeks ago that she and her longtime "beau"  that's the word she uses  were finally going to tie the knot, my reaction was a combination of "Well, it's about damned time" and "You're doing what?" The latter, of course, is de rigueur when one's daughter announces plans to wed: how could any mere man possibly be good enough? (Times being what they are, you're of course entitled to ask, when applicable, how any mere woman possibly be good enough? Those who identify with neither gender, or with both, please reword as necessary.) In fact, there was only one concern I had, and that was addressed a long time ago: she's a major smartass, a characteristic I have come to believe is heritable  you should see her brother sometime  and few guys are able to deal with that on a regular basis. Fortunately, she found one who is. And the ceremony, delayed for a couple of minutes because said brother was late (then again, he was late to his own wedding, but that's another matter entirely), ran like a Hal Roach comedy: at any given moment it looked like it was likely to fall apart, yet it finished neatly and on time, because Rev. Elizabeth Coleman, wise enough to wear sneakers to the proceedings, knew exactly what she was doing every step of the way no matter how bumfuzzling things got.

Going to the ceremony required a road trip of upwards of seven hundred miles, six and a half hours each way. This is a trip around the block compared to some of the epic World Tours I've done, the shortest of which was just under 2500 miles. (The longest was about twice that.) I haven't done a trip in about four years, owing to financial constraints, but I had little trouble sliding back into Epic Tour Mode. I'd forgotten how much I'd missed about these long drives. I'd also forgotten that I'm on a heavier diuretic than I used to be, which makes for, um, occasionally unscheduled breaks. (If you ever wondered why I drive a four-door sedan  well, don't.) In a lifetime of creating a carbon footprint, I've been through 44 states; I have promised myself that I will get to the other five before too long. (Sorry, Hawaii, but you're just too damned tough to drive to.)

The creator (with a small c) is often the worst judge of his own creation. More often than not, I've hit the Publish button and then almost immediately wondered what sort of unspeakably godawful codswallop I'd inflicted on the rest of the world. But later, if I happen to go back to that particular item for some reason, I'll page through a section of the archives, and I'll think, "You know, that wasn't half bad. How come I don't write that well now?" I was like that in the middle 1980s, where I was tossing word salad on bulletin boards, and I'm like that now, doing fanfiction on the side. And I am still startled if someone actually likes something I've said. Last week, a fanfic reader actually recommended one of my stories to his followers, calling it "an incredibly deep and beautiful story, criminally under-appreciated." The fact that I promptly heard from someone who actively hated it wasn't enough to get me out of squee mode.

The tweetstream yesterday was just jammed full of people who were upset that the National Rifle Association didn't dispatch anyone to make the rounds of the Sabbath Gasbag Programs on national television. Believing, as I do, that one is better off among one's own hostile partisans than trying to dance with the equally partisan opposition, I responded in the way I though was most effective: I wrote them a check. (In fairness, I was up for renewal anyway; but I went for an extra year this time.)

You may not have seen the last of this premise. In fact, I'd almost guarantee you haven't.